What She's Doing Now
by Yuuki Miyaka
Summary: Rayek pines after lost loves.


**Disclaimer**: You know the drill . . . The only profit I'm making is to my ego.

**What She's Doing Now**  
An ElfQuest fic  
By: Ebony, the Dark Huntress

_Last time I saw her it was turnin' colder   
But that was years ago _

There it was again, that bittersweet song filing through the speaker on the radio and drifting straight to him. The words reminded him of auburn hair, of black eyes, of midnight curls, and a gaze so forest-green that even when he'd lived his entire life in the desert, he'd still felt a kinship with the Green Growing Place that Savah spoke of. The words brought to mind the two females who had professed to love him, but had never been a safe haven for his battered spirit. He consoled himself with that thought. They'd never understood him, not one time in all the years he'd been near them. 

Slender, sun-dark fingers traced the agate pendant he wore. Ekuar had shaped it for him when he turned away that final time. It wasn't of Leetah. No, those fantasies were thankfully buried beneath a pile of ones centered around a black-curled lifemate, another female who'd never once attempted to understand him. Occasionally, when they weren't arguing, he'd allowed himself to pretend she did. But he finally realized that he could fool himself forever, or he could leave.

And leave he did.

_Last I heard she had moved to Boulder   
But where she's now, I don't know _

For a while, he'd kept up with her, without her ever knowing. Skywise had been remarkably helpful, but he'd always managed to get along with the silver-haired elf in some strange, tightly-controlled way. So he'd gotten Skywise to tell him where she was, and how she was doing. And he monitored her from afar, and sometimes from anear, hovering across the street when she left the house. After Winnowill, the idea of fooling himself forever had sounded so good, if it was with her. But something held him back, something too much like pride for him to feel comfortable with. So he waited, and he watched, and eventually, he backed off completely. 

It was the final time he'd stalked her, for stalking it was indeed, that Ekuar had shaped the pendant he was now gazing at. The relief image on the flat slice of stone was a perfect reproduction of her curves. Not soft curves. No, these were all rock-hard, well-suited to the agate representation. But she'd never been soft, either.

_But there's somethin' 'bout this time of year _

It had been winter when he'd stopped the Peeping Tom routine, and it had been winter when the agate was made, and it had been winter when Ekuar had gifted him with a pendant that left him in tears on the floor in a room completely empty, for he was not one to share his grief with another. And it was winter now. And he was listening to a song that summed it up perfectly.

_That spins my head around   
Takes me back, makes me wonder   
What she's doin' now _

So here he was, twenty or thirty years down the line, he couldn't remember which. He'd lost track around fifteen, and didn't remember the date for the fifteenth year any longer. For a time, he lost himself in memories, the touch of her still so vivid in his mind that he could almost pretend she was in the same room with him. He could remember whole days spent under a green canopy of summer leaves, both of them naked and touching. But while the sex they'd shared was nothing short of mind-blowing, it had all been sex. No joinings, no lovemaking, just a mating. She must have learned how to handle the casual aspects from Skywise.

_'Cause what she's doin' now is tearin' me apart   
Fillin' up my mind and emptying my heart _

And then he began to wonder whether she was with another now. Though she'd always been the solitary sort, he wouldn't put it past her. He'd severed their relationship hundreds of years ago, and though he'd been celibate the entire time, it had not been by choice. And she didn't have the same reasons not to touch. 

He could picture her with others. The images came far too easily for his liking, and bile rose, scorching the back of his throat. He didn't want to think of her with others. He wanted her to himself, wanted to treasure those beautiful days when all he'd had to do was reach out and trace her amazingly pale skin, to follow the faint scars that covered her body and kiss each one in reverence. He'd revered her. But it hadn't been enough for either of them.

_I can hear her call each time the cold wind blows   
And I wonder if she knows what she's doin' now _

He could remember cold nights when only the sound of her voice had been audible above the moaning wind, as he brought her to the edge of pleasure, then plunged her over it. She'd been loud, howling like the wolf her tribe was named for. He'd always been able to block her heritage out of his mind until the howls started. They'd thrown him off, destroyed the mood each time. But now, he'd give anything to hear one again.

_Just for laughs, I dialed her old number  
But no one knew her name _

Suddenly, he grabbed the phone, dialing the number he'd memorized ages ago. He hadn't called it in five years, and in the past, he'd always hung up when he heard her voice. But even hearing the abrupt greeting she always used, in her harsh, huntress-voice, had been enough to sustain him.

But the person who answered the phone was not her. There was no abrupt greeting, no harsh voice, not even a female voice. Belatedly, when he realized that he was trying to make sense of what he'd heard, he asked for her. The man on the other end assured him that he had the wrong number.

_Hung up the phone, sat there and wondered   
If she'd ever done the same _

That calm reaction, just before the line went dead, got him to thinking. He'd kept tabs on her all these years. Could she have done the same? His mind replayed all the hangups on his answering machine, wondering if they were her, if she'd been just as afraid to actually speak as he had been. But . . . no. There was a core of determination in her too strong for that. She would have called and told him off for avoiding her, rather than staying silent and hanging up.

_I took a walk in the evenin' wind   
To clear my head somehow_

Trying to pull himself out of the despair he found himself in, he headed out for a walk, using his powers to keep himself warm. His hair whipped around him in the wind, but he ignored it, seeing her form silhouetted against the trees. For a moment, he wanted to call to her, even opened his mouth to do so. But he realized before he ever made a sound that it was merely darkness on shadows and his imagination. She wasn't standing outside his house. She was somewhere, and he wouldn't see her again. Angry at himself for the weakness, he headed back inside, grabbing the whiskey bottle and a shot glass, and heading to his room.

_But tonight I lie here thinkin'   
What's she doin' now _

His head swam after several shots, and he stared up at the ceiling from his prone position on the bed. He was naked, having divested his clothes moments before he tried to conjure an image of her. Centuries celibate had taught him the value of self-pleasure. But when he failed to produce an erotic picture of her in his mind-surprising, considering the way his thoughts had flowed earlier that evening,-he turned his thoughts to Leetah. The admittance left him with a foul taste in his mouth, but he was drunk, and needed the release.

It was images of the golden boy--Cutter, chieftain of the barbarians and his bitter rival--that destroyed his arousal the second time around. And then he imagined her, his black-curled beauty, with both of them, and that had him clawing himself out of the bed to rid himself of the bile the thought caused. 

_'Cause what she's doin' now is tearin' me apart   
Fillin' up my mind and emptying my heart _

He was beginning to realize what he'd lost, and was curious as to what she'd found in her life. But it didn't matter. He didn't want to share her, didn't want her to stay away. His heart felt like a block of ice, his chest tight with the pain of ages-old loss.

_I can hear her call each time the cold wind blows   
And I wonder if she knows what she's doin' now _

The wind moaned low, and he heard her voice in it, howling out his name. Amber-gold eyes blinked once, and a single tear made its way down his cheek. And he wondered once more what she might be doing.


End file.
